MLK Day in Memphis: The New Orleans Pelicans Last Game Before Zion
By Tim Burke
New Orleans Pelicans vs. Memphis on MLK Day: Highlights and Takeaways
What was the best highlight? Biggest moment?
While this game had plenty of action and scoring, there weren’t many highlights. There were a few times when Ja Morant and Jaxson Hayes tried to put defenders on a poster that would sell for years but sadly neither was able to throw down those dunks.
The game broadcast even had a hard time picking the best highlight and chose instead to go with a montage of Jrue Holiday knocking down threes during the game. I won’t be taking that route.
The best highlight from this game was the most surprising moment, when Grayson Allen threw down an alley-oop from Ja Morant. It shouldn’t be surprising that an NBA player can dunk but it caught me off guard as I’ve watched Grayson Allen play a lot of games as a fan of Duke basketball but I couldn’t remember him dunking in a game.
The moment of the game was when Jrue Holiday hit the 19th three-pointer of the game for the New Orleans Pelicans, setting a new franchise record for made three’s by the team in a single game. The Pelicans would finish with 21 made three’s on 48 attempts in this one, while the Grizzlies made only nine of their 33 shots from distance.
What was the main takeaway from this game?
The main takeaway from this game was that this Pels team can be deadly from three-point range and use that to erase any size disadvantage they could face in the future. It’s not often discussed but New Orleans is one of the best three-point shooting teams in the league.
At the time this game was played the Pelicans ranked in the top five teams in the NBA at three-point attempts, makes and percentage. When the season was paused the team had only dropped out of the top five in attempts, falling all the way to sixth. This means as the season has gone on the Pelicans have become more accurate at shooting from deep while taking slightly fewer shots per game.
What did we learn from this game?
I learned that games played between these two teams in the next few years will be tons of fun, and the four games each season will be circled on the calendar as games you must attend. The young core of the Pelicans (Lonzo Ball, Brandon Ingram and Zion Williamson) match up well against the young Grizzlies (Ja Morant, Brandon Clarke, Jaren Jackson Jr.).
If both teams add the right players to their rosters in the next few years, the games played between them will feature on national TV every time. While we didn’t get to see Zion vs Ja in the matchup between the top two picks in this game, we did see how the Pelicans could plan to play against Ja in a post-season setting.
Jrue was guarding Morant most of the time both players were on the floor and Holiday made the game very difficult for the young point guard. It would be interesting to see if New Orleans keeps that matchup set and tries to play through Ingram and Zion offensively.